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It's taken a while, but we finally have an admission we can all understand. It had to be difficult to fess up to your ineptitude at helping develope a healthcare program so many despise, that they are now willing to obfuscate their freedoms in favor of another big government something-for-nothing program.

Is there any possibility that any of you libs will return to what this nation was founded on? Silly things like individual responsibility, and working for what you get. Will you ever see how corrupt YOU are when you applaud the idea of taking from those that earned it, and giving it to those that didn't? Do you not see the immorality of that form of class envy?

The only way your single-payer healthcare system can possibly hoodwink the electorate, is if the multitude of small businesses decide it's their way out of this incredible burden the unions foisted on the working class.

To think so many of you are actually believing what's being proposed by this spur-of-the-moment batch of nit-wits presently in charge, only furthers my views of your naivete. But then, being part of the sheeple that installed this current crop of socialists, it shouldn't surprise any sane American you are doing just what your leadership stated they would do, so you must be elated. Wonder how YOUR great grandkids will recall what you've done for them.

UB

Your comments directed at my work history weren't very specific. Are you talking about my efforts at helping commercial insurance companies such as MetLife, Aetna, Travelers, CNA and First Health to improve their insurance programs? Or are you talking about my track record of having reduced Medicaid expenditures by an estimated $200 million in one year while overall nationwide expenditures increased by 14%? Or could it be my record of having reduced staffing levels at 18 hospitals by 19% over two years while improving the quality of care based on the results of multiple quality of care audits?

If you insist on being a blowhard, you may want to save your breath for something you know about.

If you detest socialized medicine, I would suggest that you take the first concrete steps to end it by foregoing all health care insurance for yourself and your family since that is the source of every scare tactic problem cited by opponents of reform. There is only one difference between the system that has been proposed and what we have now....more people would be covered. Like those covered by insurance now, the new people covered by the proposed programs would only pay a portion of the cost of the insurance they received.

Personally, I do not believe that employers should have anything to do with health insurance. It makes consumers insensitive to the cost of care, it adds an unsustainable cost onto the price of American produced goods and services that is not borne by employers in other countries, and it gives employers access to confidential personal health care information while also giving them incentives to exclude employees who are likely to drive up health care costs.

Businesses should not be permitted to deduct health insurance premiums as a business expense and individuals should receive no tax preference for health care or health care insurance expenditures. Doing these things would break the back of socialism in medicine and bring real market forces to bear on cost control. I can guarantee that our health care costs would plummet over night. However, if you insist on continuing the socialized system that we now have, I see no reason why anyone should be excluded.

Au Contraire, 777...when your socialist friends put Obamacare into effect, we will ALL be worried for your survival, as I will for every Doctor I know.

UB

My socialists friends? Although I have not personally met most on this forum, when I do, I will consider you my friend, no doubt. I would hardly consider this a "socialist" leaning group!

Different aspects of life lend themselves to different positions on the continuum of governance. Nobody has a problem with socializing the military. We all pay taxes, and we hope that supports a strong military for the "common defense". Business, we like to keep on the capitalist/individual-based part of the continuum. Education is a compromise somewhere in the middle, with most supporting a *good* public education, with private options for those who can and want to pay extra.

I think healthcare falls nearly into the same category as education. Would you not agree that we would all benefit from not having uninsured running out the cost for those of us who are? Or if we could unburden American industry from their crippling healthcare costs?

Some basic level of healthcare for all legal Amercians, then private plans for those who want them, will probably define a two-tiered system someday. The current system is unsustainable.

On this forum, those comments will likely get me labeled as socialist. On a different web, they'd be calling me a right-wing wacko!

I think healthcare falls nearly into the same category as education. Would you not agree that we would all benefit from not having uninsured running out the cost for those of us who are? Or if we could unburden American industry from their crippling healthcare costs?

Dave

For the benefit of us ignoramuses, please explain how American industry got strapped with those crippling healthcare costs in the first place?

As far as the uninsured running up our costs, I'd far rather take my chances with them, than having a governmental mandate that takes another of my freedoms away. Besides that, what makes you think EVERYBODY will pay for THIS "insurance"?

The libs are about as naive concerning this as they are in their beliefs about gun control.

Don't you realize this program isn't only about healthcare? It's just another program to further take your freedoms away, and control more of the sheeples lives.

If you and others in your profession are buying into this, you are as ignorant as the farmers that are falling for the minor changes in that Algore bill, and thinking "it's not all that bad".

The sheeple are getting sheared and ripped off all at the same time. The education system has to be proud of their product. It's the 'other' area our founders failed to foresee, but then we can't blame them for not being completely clairvoyant. They had just created a free nation. How could they have known there would be so many willing to have those freedoms legislated away?

UB

When the one you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure.

For the benefit of us ignoramuses, please explain how American industry got strapped with those crippling healthcare costs in the first place?

First, I didn't call anyone an ignoramus. Morris Fishbein, editor of JAMA warned about this in the 40s, when companies began to offer healthcare coverage as an enticement. He was concerned that people would begin to expect employee provided care as an entitlement, and would become resistant to paying for healthcare. How prophetic he was.

Besides that, what makes you think EVERYBODY will pay for THIS "insurance"?

It's called tax. Don't you think that you currently pay for medicare and the VA system? By enlarging the risk pool, overall costs are reduced. It's the whole concept of insurance. By cherry picking only young, healthy enrollees, and dumping them when they get sick, or dumping them into the medicare system when they get "old and expensive" ie, "not profitable", the private companies are able to award themselves billions in CEO bonuses at your expense. In our current system, 30 cents of every premium dollar you send in, goes to administration. Not very efficient if you ask me. Unless I'm the CEO pocketing that green.

If you and others in your profession are buying into this, you are as ignorant as the farmers that are falling for the minor changes in that Algore bill, and thinking "it's not all that bad".

I don't know about farmers. I do know that the American College of Surgeons has been deeply involved in helping to formulate this legislation, and has offered advice and constructive criticism, and is not happy with all aspects of it.

How could they have known there would be so many willing to have those freedoms legislated away?

I was wondering if you could clarify something for me. I sense a huge paradox in the views towards health care from the right side. I posted earlier that certain allowances of socialism are accepted in America, ie the military providing for a "common defense" that we all pay into. You seemed to refute that health care in any form should be "socialized" in the form of a national policy.

Question for you...Isn't ANY type of health insurance "socializing" the risk of getting sick or injured? Everyone pays a small amount, shares the risk, and everyone is eligible to benefit if the need arises? The masses providing for the indivudual. So how is ANY form of insurance acceptable?

Under a strict capitalist system, doctors would set a price...as high as they can and still sell a service or product, regardless of anyone's ability to pay (as long as the rich can pay, and keep them in the black, right?--law of supply and demand) and people are either able to afford to pay for healthcare, mortgage their surgery (if they have adequate credit score) or just do without? Isn't that capitalism in its truest form?

Life is rarely black or white. There are usually shades of gray in between. I don't want a pure socialist system by any means, but I don't think pure capitalism serves the average American very well either.

I would be very cautious in thinking a pure capitalist system of healthcare is the answer. If you don't think so, just check how much a boob job is, and see if your cosmetic surgeon accepts low-paying insurance carriers. I wouldn't want my GP or cardiologist operating the same way.

"Question for you...Isn't ANY type of health insurance "socializing" the risk of getting sick or injured? Everyone pays a small amount, shares the risk, and everyone is eligible to benefit if the need arises? The masses providing for the indivudual. So how is ANY form of insurance acceptable?"

By being something I choose from the many companies that offer it. If you can't recognize the difference, I can see how you have become part of the problem.

Since you can't bring yourself to say it, the unions caused business to get into the insurance payment perks that have skewed the healthcare costs so radically.

While I concur that todays system is far from ideal, what you and Jeff are allowing your messianic leader to ram down our throats is just asinine. If you can't recognize where this is leading, God help you all. You will have indeed been part of the annihilation of a truly great nation.

UB

When the one you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure.

"Question for you...Isn't ANY type of health insurance "socializing" the risk of getting sick or injured? Everyone pays a small amount, shares the risk, and everyone is eligible to benefit if the need arises? The masses providing for the indivudual. So how is ANY form of insurance acceptable?"

By being something I choose from the many companies that offer it. If you can't recognize the difference, I can see how you have become part of the problem.

Since you can't bring yourself to say it, the unions caused business to get into the insurance payment perks that have skewed the healthcare costs so radically.

While I concur that todays system is far from ideal, what you and Jeff are allowing your messianic leader to ram down our throats is just asinine. If you can't recognize where this is leading, God help you all. You will have indeed been part of the annihilation of a truly great nation.

UB

UB,

If everyone paid 100% of their own premiums, I would agree that it is simply a matter of risk sharing. However, on average the insured part of our population only pays a relatively small percentage of their premiums. Employers, not consumers make the decision on what plan to use and the consumers are almost completely shielded from any of the economics associated with their health care decisions. For those reasons, it is a socialist system and suffers the problems of a socialist system.

There is no logic between those who are insured vs those who are not. In fact, there is nothing to indicate that the insured work any harder than the uninsured or that they made decisions that were generally better or worse. For that reason, I believe in universal coverage. I believe in a regulated market because of the absence of an economic market. However, my preference would be for regulations that simulate to the maximum extent possible the characteristics of a free market by increasing competition among pharmaceutical companies, managed care companies, insurance companies and others that have had something of a free ride for too many years at tax payer expense.

I also believe that over time we need to get employers completely out of the health care business. There is no reason that coverage should be tied to your job. Breaking that tie will do more to improve the competitiveness of American businesses than almost any other program that has been proposed by either party. To the extent that we put consumers in the position of choosing and paying for their own health plans, that will also add true competitive forces to the marketplace.

There are no capitalists involved on either side of our health care debate. We have those who currently enjoy virtually free health care under the current system and those who do not. We have those who profit from the current system where the consumer gets a free ride and businesses face few obstacles to unregulated growth at tax payer expense vs those who believe that in the absence of economic constraints on consumers that other approaches are needed to restore a semblance of fiscal sanity.

The reality is that few things threaten the future of our economy more than our existing runaway health care system. Currently, health care spending totals about 17% of GDP. Individual spending on health care is a small fraction of that total. Health care expenditures are growing at about 2 1/2 times inflation. Health care already consumes a greater share of GDP than all Federal government spending for non-health care purposes. The system is broken, and it will not fix itself.

The reality is that few things threaten the future of our economy more than our existing runaway health care system. Currently, health care spending totals about 17% of GDP. Individual spending on health care is a small fraction of that total. Health care expenditures are growing at about 2 1/2 times inflation. Health care already consumes a greater share of GDP than all Federal government spending for non-health care purposes. The system is broken, and it will not fix itself.

And you believe Obama-care will? No one who is paying attention to the details will assert that America's current health care system is perfect, or that it is in no need of repair. But the media-fueled chanting of "It's time for a change" is based as much in emotion as in fact.

The best healthcare on earth is in the USA. Portions of the US healthcare system are in dire need of change & reform. But it is inconceiveable that you intellegent folks are prepared to throw the baby out with the bath water and buy into the notion that just any change is acceptable. What has the same government that has backrupted Social Security and Medicare done lately to earn so much of your trust?

What you seem to believe goverernment can give you, it can also take away, ration, include or exclude any part or any person at its own whimsy. Reforming the private sector right out of existence is a poor option, fellow Americans. Once we have given up our rights to choose, it's very hard to get them back.

Evan

"Prepare your dog in such a manner that the work he is normally called upon to do under-whelms him, not overwhelms him." ~ Evan Graham“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”